Burn It. Bury It

In New Mexico, in September there is always the promise of a storm somewhere near, a thunder that rarely reaches you. There is always mud between your toes, and there is always something to eat. I am stilled by the landscape and the intention in everything from how they till the soil to how they pray at night. And still, I think of you.

There is a story told to kids here, folklore to keep them from swimming in the ditch bank, about a woman who killed her children and cries there at night. La Lorona. They say you can hear her if you listen quietly. They say don’t swim. There are dangers and beauty in equal measure it seems everywhere I turn as of late.

We go up into the mountains to sleep in a cave carved from sandstone so that mother earth can literally wrap herself around us and I can cry too. In the morning we walk down to the river, cloudy with clay and silt and low for the season. I stand in the mud and toss a rock as far as I can, letting go of the things I don’t know how to let go of. But, walking back to the cave you’re still with me and so is she.

So I dig a hole with a shovel in the soft earth and I write it down, I burn it and then I bury it and say a prayer, and leave it there. A storm wants to come but it never does. And I sense I am only starting to think about the things I don’t think about. I am only now 17 months later talking about it out loud.

We do not grow up into the kind of women we think we will be. We grow up into the only kind of women we know how to be.

2 Replies to “Burn It. Bury It”

You are such a beauty and your words are like honeycombs to me. I think because you somehow put into writing what I am currrently thinking and feeling To be stuck in the past is a bitter and brutal thing. But to let go and be present seems to overpower that, dont you agree? Im stuggling to let go of what i once had and am now realizing maybe its in the past because i no longer need it in my life. Although I can never replace what I had…I can fill those holes, that void, differently. And maybe, just maybe, be much more happier. Press on you wildflower—-Im rooting for you even though you dont know me and wouldnt think I am.

Thank you ten lifetimes over. I think I just saw this comment at the very moment I needed to hear it. I take it as advice and advice that I need. To fill the holes of what might have been. And that to show up now might overpower the rest of it. I am counting on it. And maybe just maybe, I’ll be happier too becuase​ of it. Thank you for reading and the support, and eve​rything. It’s felt and appreciated so much.